Blog #8: Douglass on the Influence and Rights of Women

Of all the horrors of slavery, a particularly cruel one was the separation of children from their mothers. Infants were raised by older women called “aunties” so that young mothers could quickly return to fieldwork. This further broke familial bonds that might interfere with obedience to the master. So it’s not surprising that Frederick Douglass barely knew his mother. The last time he saw his mother was when she walked 12 miles to take him upon her knee briefly,which he said made him feel like a king upon a throne.

His grandmother kept him blissfully unaware of his inevitable separation from his mother. When he was moved to Baltimore, he briefly nurtured a relationship with his master’s wife, Mrs. Sofia, who began teaching him to read. As he cared for her son Tommy, Douglass felt like Tommy’s half-brother. After her husband chastised her for coddling the boy, Sofia withdrew and grew cold toward him. Despite having been severed from the early matriarchal influences in his life, Douglass deeply valued the leadership of women activists. He expressed deep gratitude to Harriet Beecher Stowe for the “services which you have already rendered my afflicted and persecuted people” by writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He lauded Harriet Tubman for her “superior labors and devotion to the cause.”

Understanding that liberty should be extended to all, Douglass attended the Seneca Falls Convention promoting women’s rights. He worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton who, despite some racist beliefs, helped him to move, in the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates, “from a narrow abolitionism toward a broader humanism.” Douglass became known as “a women’s-rights-man.”

Nearer the end of his life, Douglass proclaimed, “When the true history of the anti-slavery cause shall be written, woman will occupy a large space in its pages; for the cause of the slave has been particularly woman’s cause. Her heart and her conscience have supplied in large degree its motive and mainspring. Her skill, industry, patience, and perseverance have been wonderfully manifest in every trial hour.” (274)

The trial hours continue into today, and we are still fighting for inclusion. Much of the racial justice movement is still cis-gender, heterosexual male dominated. Emergent modern movements, however, carry the legacy of woman and queer-led struggles for justice. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded by three women - Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Movements like Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) are led by black queer activists and organizers like Charlene Carruthers. In their honor, and in Douglass', let’s remember to fight for an all-encompassing liberty that emancipates people regardless of gender expression, orientation, and identity.

Lesson #21: Appreciate the traumatic generational effects of slavery’s attack on the integrity of black families.

Lesson #22: Our immigration and criminal justice policies and institutions continue to separate families as a tool of oppression.

Lesson #23: Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped awaken northern sympathies for slaves and was a major contributing factor to the start of the Civil War.

Lesson #24: The influence of women is often overlooked in social justice causes.